e-Consultation as a tool for participation in teachers’ unions: the greater the focus, the greater the number of visits

In the 2000’s, the Internet became the preferred mean for the citizens to communicate. The YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, i.e., the social networks in general appeared together with the Web 2.0, which allows an extraordinary interaction between citizens and the democratic institutions. The trade unions constantly fight governments’ decisions, especially in periods of crisis like the one that the world, Europe and, in particular, Portugal are facing. In this regard, the use of e-participation platforms is expected to strengthen the relationship between trade unions and the education community. This paper reports the research about the planning and driving of a series of experiments of online public consultation, launched by teachers’ trade unions. These experiments are compared with those of other countries, such as Australia, United Kingdom and United States of America. A quantitative analysis of the results regarding hits, subscriptions, and response rates is presented, and it is compared with the 90-9-1 rule, the ASCU model and data from government agencies. The experiments performed used the Liberopinion, an online platform that supports bidirectional asynchronous communication. A better understanding of the benefits of these collaborative environments is expected by promoting quality of interaction between actors

Relevant aspects for an EF3-Evaluation of e-cognocracy

The search for an appropriate response to the new challenges and needs posed by the Knowledge Society in the area of public decisions has led to the development of a number of participation models whose value must be assessed and analysed in an integral manner. Using a theoretical model based on structural equations, the present work identifies the relevant factors for an EF3-approach to the democracy model named e-Cognocracy: it comprises a conjoint evaluation of its effectiveness (doing what is right), efficacy (achieving goals) and efficiency (doing things correctly). The model was applied to a real-life e-Cognocracy experience undertaken in the municipality of Cadrete, Zaragoza. The evaluation resulted in the extraction and identification of a series of relationships that allow the advancement of an EF3-participation acceptance model, in line with the TAM model of Davis and the work of Delone and MacLean, which can be used for the integral evaluation of any e-participation model

ECSCW 2013 Adjunct Proceedings The 13th European Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work 21 - 25. September 2013, Paphos, Cyprus

This volume presents the adjunct proceedings of ECSCW 2013.While the proceedings published by Springer Verlag contains the core of the technical program, namely the full papers, the adjunct proceedings includes contributions on work in progress, workshops and master classes, demos and videos, the doctoral colloquium, and keynotes, thus indicating what our field may become in the future

We asked, you said, we did: assessing the drivers and effectiveness of an e-participation practice in Scotland

E-participation refers to the process of engaging citizens and stakeholders in policy and decision-making process to make public administration participatory and transparent. This chapter explores the main drivers behind the introduction of an e-participation practice in Scotland called We asked, you said, we did, and assesses its effectiveness. The combination of documentary analysis of Scottish public sector reform reports and a series of in-depth interviews reveals that the so-called Scottish Approach to policy-making has strongly influenced the adoption and use of We asked, you said, we did. The practice has contributed to the way the Scottish Government works in collaboration with stakeholders and citizens in designing and revising policy and has fostered the co-production of solutions to public policy problems. However, the Scottish Government need to utilize it at the ‘right’ time and on appropriate issues so that it can make a real difference to policy outcomes

Evaluation of engagement with hyperlocal e-participation systems by citizens and representatives

This work is concerned with the information practices associated with hyperlocal representation. The findings derive from an evaluation of a portfolio of ten previously published papers covering the period 2010-2020.The main contributions are: (a) The development of the concept of hyperlocal representation as a domain with its own challenges; (b) The characterisation of hyperlocal representatives as stakeholders in the participation process; and (c) Expansion of the existence and nature of lurkers as passive participants in the participation process, and the responses seen in the information sharing practices of the hyperlocal representatives, including use of information sharing by proxy. These contributions are significant because they are the first to consider community councillors as information actors in their own right, and their response to lurking behaviours in their community. This is in contrast with previous research at this level of government, which has focussed on the activities of citizens, and local government administration staff. The portfolio demonstrates the application of frameworks derived from information science to the field of e-participation. It identifies the impact of the project- and information systems-based nature of much e-participation research, and proposes an information-centric perspective from information science to support a new analysis, through application of theoretical approaches derived from everyday life information practice, information literacy, activity systems and communities of learning. An additional contribution is the creation of a new model of the transition from lurking to participation based on social-cognitive theory. A further contribution of the thesis is to methodologies in information science, in particular through the design of questionnaires and supporting interviews as data collection instruments in this context. This thesis adds to understanding of information sharing in a quasi-work context where there are limited expectations of interaction. It could support future research into the information practice of representatives in (a) the choice of channels for communication with citizens, (b) the information communities involved in the representation role and (c) the impact of the policy cycle on information practices